The invention is a system and method for distributing information (collectively “information system” or simply the “system”). More specifically, the invention is an information system that makes it easier and more efficient for potential customers to identify potentially desirable providers of goods and/or services (collectively “providers”), while at the same time, making it easier for providers to more effectively “focus” advertising to potentially interested customers.
The yellow pages and other traditional “hard copy” telephone directories (collectively “phone books”) have over the years provided individuals and organizations (collectively “customers”) with the ability to obtain information about potential providers of goods and services. Phone books typically organize provider listings (“listings”) into a variety of different categories based on the types of the goods, services or other offerings (collectively “products”) being offered. For example, an Italian restaurant may be listed under the category of “restaurants.” Although many providers are listed in the phone book without any fees being charged by the provider of the phone book, many providers choose to pay advertisement fees in order to obtain larger listings or better placement for their listings. In addition to organizing listings by category, traditional phone books also provide a geographic focus for customers using the phone book. For example, a phone book for the city of Chicago will not include restaurants located in New York City unless the restaurants are affiliated with national chains that also have operations in Chicago. Although phone books do provide customers and providers with a useful way to reach out to each other, phone books suffer from various flaws and limitations that are intrinsic to “hard copy” documents.
Listings in phone books are inherently static. Advertisers in the phone book cannot update their listings once the phone book is published. Thus, the information provided in a phone book listing or advertisement may include out of date information relating to the location of the business, the operating hours, phone numbers, sales and other time-sensitive events, product offerings, and other potentially important information relating to the provider. Moreover, phone books are not, and cannot be, specifically tailored to the specific needs of a specific customer at a desired time and place. One day, a particular customer may be exclusively interested in looking for restaurants within a particular suburb. On another day, that same person may be solely interested in looking for nightclubs located in a broader metropolitan area. A printed phone book cannot adapt itself to the ever changing specific goals of the customer, or to the specific intentions of the supplier in the context of customers with such goals. The lack of flexibility provided by conventional phone books is particularly evident in evaluating the geographical and categorical goals of the potential customer.
The functionality of geographical distinctions is limited in phone books. The ability of phone books to incorporate the geographical desires of customers is limited to a single binary variable. Listings are either included in a particular phone book or they are excluded. Phone books do not typically allow the customer to perform a more narrow inquiry limited to a mere subset of the geographical regions covered by the phone book. For example, a phone book for a particular metropolitan area does not typically allow the customer to limit their view to listings within a geographical area that is selected by the customer. Moreover, depending on the location of the particular customer, there may be geographical regions just outside the geographical coverage of the phone book that are closer to the particular customer than the listings provided in the phone book even though the customer is located within the geographical region covered by the phone book. It would be desirable to provide customers with more flexible and sophisticated geographic functionality to provide for a more focused and efficient exchange of information between providers and customers. A hierarchy of geographical distinctions would provide customers with a powerful tool for obtaining the information that they desire.
The functionality of organizing listings into various subject matter categories is also significantly limited in a traditional printed phone book. Phone books provide listings sequentially because the listings are physically printed on paper. Phone books cannot incorporate a hierarchy of categories without introducing a prohibitive quantity of redundancy. For example, a phone book does not typically include many overlapping categories of different scopes and foci. For example, most phone books do not differentiate between categories organized in a hierarchical fashion. For example, the categories of “retail stores,” “consumer electronics,” “digital optical equipment,” “digital cameras,” and “digital video cameras” are distinct from each other, but at the same time, are interrelated as to subject matter. For example, digital video cameras are a type of digital camera, and digital cameras are a type of digital optical equipment. In the context of a phone book, category “hierarchies” are typically limited to a hierarchical “depth” of only one level. True hierarchies of categories are not an option, because the paper medium of a phone book does not provide the dynamic ability to “drill down” or “drill up” a hierarchy. Thus, a customer looking for listings of digital video cameras may have to settle for consumer electronics listings that include providers having nothing to do with digital video cameras. It would be desirable to provide customers with the ability to flexibly navigate categories from within an integrated hierarchy of categories that is more than one level deep. It may also be desirable to provide a fully “normalized” hierarchy of categories and geographical regions so that potential options within a particular area of interest are made accessible to customers in a prioritized manner in accordance with the selections made by customers. The phrase “fully normalized” refers to the ability of a system to potentially distinguish between any two attributes that are differentiated by only a single material distinction. In a normalized hierarchy, differences between data elements are treated differently to the extent of the differences, and similar data elements are treated similarly to the extent of the similarities. A “normalized hierarchy” of relevant information would provide for a more focused and efficient exchange of information between providers and customers. By limiting the ability of customers to “zero in” and focus on the listings that are of interest, traditional phone books force customers to wade through information that is not of interest to the information that they are currently looking for.
Limitations of physical phone books also impede the desires and goals of advertisers. Just as customers may want to focus on a particular geographical region or a particular category, providers may also desire to limit or “locus” their listings and other advertisements. For example, a small barbershop may not be interested in trying to bring in customers more than a few miles away from the location of the barbershop. Moreover, the barbershop may not provide the range of hair care and other appearance-related services of a beauty salon, spa, or similar business. In many instances, the provider is either forced to pay for reaching an audience that the provider is not truly interested in pursuing, or the provider must forego pursuing an audience that the provider is interested in pursuing. If the provider chooses not to pay for a listing, both the provider and the publisher of the phone book are negatively impacted by the inherent limitations of the phone book.
Phone books lack a direct feedback mechanism to inform phone book publishers and their advertisers of the usage of the various categories or advertisements in the phone book. The number of people who actually view a particular listing or ad provided in the phone book can only be estimated. Similarly, the percentage of people who see a particular listing and respond to it can only be estimated. The traditional “hard copy” phone book does not include a mechanism for transmitting information back to phone book publishers and their advertisers. The inability to directly measure the effectiveness and utility of listings impedes advertisers in transmitting their message in a phone book, and limits the ability of publishers to facilitate such communications. The inability to directly measure effectiveness results in inefficiencies that are detrimental to publishers, advertisers, and customers. In many circumstances, it would be desirable for an information distribution system to definitively track the access and usage of advertisement information. If such a system were established, it would facilitate the implementation of a pricing mechanism based on one or more objective pricing formulas, including for example, charging advertisers on a “per-hit” or per transaction basis or for automatic placement within a well-defined geographic region in accordance with a robust multi-hierarchical category system.
The implementation of alternative delivery and pricing mechanisms that are precluded by limitations intrinsic to paper phone books prevent phone book publishers from more effectively tailoring listings for the mutual benefit of customers, providers, and publishers alike. For example, providing any form of preferential placement to providers who pay for placement based on objective criteria that help demonstrate effectiveness can be an effective way to encourage advertising spending by providers.
Some of the present-day limitations of paper-bound phone books are addressed by various information technology tools such as search engines and other mechanisms that utilize the World Wide Web, or similar networks (collectively “search engines”). For example, the ability to monitor Internet traffic (e.g. a “hits” from a link to a website), and the ability to frequently update information on a website can be accomplished by using various tools found in the existing art.
Unfortunately, in solving certain problems, search engines in the existing art actually exacerbate many existing limitations of paper-bound phone books while also creating entirely new problems. The marvels of information technology can literally provide a customer with information from a voluminous number of sources from across the globe. This makes tools such as search engines particularly powerful and useful for tracking down information that is hard to obtain, pertains to “niche” topics, or is otherwise related to obscure subjects. For example, search engines may be excellent tools to learn about collecting rare books, restoring 17th century art, or finding a person who is fluent in the Klingon language (a language originating from a popular science fiction show that began in the 1960's). Internet search technologies can also “succeed” in obtaining information about more mundane or common matters.
The use of search engines, however, in more common contexts all too often results in “information overflow” for the user, as well as the providing of so-called “false positives.” Unlike paper-bound phone books, search engines are not limited to organizations desiring to provide potential customers with particular goods and services. Search engines are not designed to easily provide users with the ability to identify nearby businesses involved in a particular category or sub-category of goods or services. For example, a search term of “restaurant” will return listings relating to restaurant sites, restaurant reviews, and a voluminous number of “restaurant” references having nothing to do with actual restaurants that are open for business and seeking customers. For example, screenplays, poems, novels, short stories, song lyrics, and variety of other literary mediums may include the word “restaurant” because restaurants are a common part of everyday life, and often make good context for literary works. Search engines do not provide an efficient mechanism for potential customers to obtain information from providers interested in providing a particular good or service to the customer. Search engine users are effectively prevented from finding the proverbial “needle” they are looking for due to a “haystack” of irrelevant data between the user, and the result they are looking for.
Although it is true that search terms relating to geographical regions can be submitted to search engines, that functionality is not the same thing as retrieving information that is specifically organized and stored into various hierarchies of geography, categories, and potentially other relevant attributes. A search consisting of “New York” and “barbershops” will still result in a voluminous number of listings having nothing to with a barbershop open for business in New York City. This limitation is intrinsic to the nature of the Internet and the types of searches performed by conventional search engines.
Nor do search engines provide guidance to both advertisers and customers through a normalized hierarchical category structure, designed to minimize the likelihood of returning less than the desired universe of goods and services. Individuals, depending on their cultural and geographic background, may use non-similar nomenclature for the same desired good or service. For example, it is possible to use the word “lounge”, “club”, “tavern” or “pub”, as synonyms for a “bar.” In many contexts, it would be desirable for an information system to normalize user terminology into the hierarchical category structure to facilitate the true desires of the user.
Unlike phone books that are created and organized by a publisher, the Internet is not managed by any single organization. The unmanaged evolution and growth of the Internet has resulted in such a large volume of ever increasing information that precludes attempts to organize every potential search listing into a hierarchy of categories and geographical areas. It would be desirable for an online system to provide customers with the ability to locate desired goods and services using distinguishable attributes such as geographic or category based limitations, and permitting extremely refined focus in each of these areas simultaneously depending on the needs and desires of the customer.
Search engines also hamper the ability of providers to better focus their marketing and advertising efforts to potential customers. For example, some search engines prioritize listings within a search engine result the basis of a per-hit advertising fee paid for by the advertiser in accordance with a “key” term, which is mapped to the search term used by a searcher. Advertisers in such systems cannot target their audience based on geography or the category of the good or service, and the use of “key” terms based solely on word matching greatly reduces the total universe of potentially relevant hits to the detriment of all involved. It would be desirable to provide advertisers with such capabilities that do not suffer from the limitations of a “key” term search approach.
It would also be desirable for publishers or administrators of online tools to create various administrative rules that would facilitate mutually rewarding approaches by which advertisers are appropriately charged for advertising online.
For example, in a system involving advertisers competing for favorable placement on the basis of their per-hit bid amount (“bid-based approaches”), it might be desirable to take into account the overall relationship between the administrator and the advertiser. For example, if a particular advertiser has purchased numerous search listings, it might be desirable to adjust or enhance the impact of the bid amount by the particular advertiser for a particular search term. Adjustments can also be made on seniority to reward long-term sustained relationships. In some instances, a portion of the bid amount may go to purchasing a larger listing, flashy sound or animation effects, larger font, or some other enhancing attribute. In such a situation, the value of the bid amount that relates to placement could be correspondingly adjusted.
It would further be desirable to come up with additional administrative rules that take into account customer participation since the results are motivated to both anticipate and facilitate the needs and desires of individual customers.
Unfortunately, under the existing search engine art, all providers compete against each other, regardless of differences in geographic scope or the scope of the goods and services. In bid-based approaches, local providers are bidding against national providers. Providers within a specialized sub-category such as high speed digital video cameras are bidding against more general providers of photography equipment or even consumer electronics retailers. Thus, it would typically be desirable to facilitate the organization of various provider listings into “groups” based on geography, category, fee type (such as fixed fee approaches or bid-based approaches), and other distinctions. It may also be desirable for administrators to create different administrative rules for different groups. For example, it might be desirable for local advertisers to have a different minimum bid requirement and even a different minimum bid increment requirement, than a national advertiser.
As discussed above, both online search tools and the more traditional printed phone books lack useful mechanisms to enhance the ability to potential customers to find the information they are looking for, and the ability of providers to focus their marketing and advertising efforts to those potential customers most interested in their goods and services. In many respects, the advantages of online search engines affirmatively teach away from the functionality of conventional printed phone books, and the functionality of conventional paper-bound phone books affirmatively teach away from the functionality of search engines. Although there are some online phone books in the existing prior art, up until now they have typically mimicked their traditional counterparts with only a few basic advantages such as the providing of a map or driving directions to the provider. The known prior art does not disclose, much less affirmatively suggest, the existence of a system or method that can surpass the functionality of both traditional printed phone books and online search tools with respect to the mutually beneficial use and exchange of information between customers and providers to facilitate a business relationship.